I didn’t argue when the bars closed; that was what frightened Glenn most. The corporal’s keys clinked like a gavel, sealing us into a courtroom neither of us had expected, my uniform suddenly feeling more like evidence than armor. Glenn waited for the performance he’d rehearsed into me since childhood: the quick defense, the self-deprecating joke, the shrug that let him stay right about who I was. Instead, I sat down on the steel bench and let the silence grow teeth. For the first time in thirty years, I refused to cross-examine myself on his behalf, and the absence of that familiar ritual pressed against the walls harder than any sentence the brig could han… Continues…
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